Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

It is often said that it is a great pleasure to follow the previous speaker, and it could not be more of a pleasure for me to follow the final speech in a King’s Speech debate by the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), because he has been a champion in this House for a sensible way forward. His work on the Skidmore review was exemplary.

I also want to pick up on what the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) said about the need to maintain the cross-party consensus, which has been so vital to the progress that we have made over the past 10 years—and more than that, the past 15 years. Cross-party consensus has enabled us to progress. Yes, the past 10 years have been years of progress; the past 13 years have been years of progress. The foundation was laid very ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the Government took advantage of that, and we are now in a good place. We are in the lead, but we are not showing leadership. That is the difference: we need to show more leadership now.

Last winter, there were 4,706 excess winter deaths in Britain caused by living in cold, damp homes. That was 1,520 more than in the year before, and last winter was considered mild—let us all pray that this winter too is considered mild. I will examine what the King’s Speech will do for those in fuel poverty and those who will struggle in any winter because their property is simply draughty, damp, cold and un-insulated. How will this King’s Speech prevent even more excess deaths this winter?

It is often said that the first job of Government is to protect their citizens. That does not just mean from external threat or internal crime, but in the basics of life. What could be more basic than the warmth of a decent home? Thankfully, energy prices have fallen since last winter, but they remain 70% higher than in the year before, so what is the Government’s strategy? What demands have they made of the energy supply companies to help customers get through this winter? What measures are there to improve the energy efficiency of buildings? Some 21% of UK emissions—over a fifth of all our emissions—comes from heating leaky and inefficient buildings; 21% of emissions, but 100% misery for those living in those buildings.

The majority of those 4,706 excess deaths were pensioners, who are most vulnerable to the cold. What measures are the Government taking to ensure the uptake of pension credit? The Secretary of State worked at the Centre for Social Justice and at the Housing and Finance Institute, and she has been a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, so she knows the plight of pensioner poverty. Yet this King’s Speech holds no hope that the Government will tackle the problem of 37% of pensioners not getting pension credit.

Where is the Bill to retrofit energy efficiency measures in all our housing stock, to save money and save lives by making sure people can turn their heating down because their property is not losing every therm it pumps out? There is nothing—well, not quite nothing. Ahead of the King’s Speech, the Prime Minister announced that he was dropping the proposal to oblige landlords to ensure that the properties they rent to their tenants are brought up to a minimum energy performance certificate standard of C by 2028. That will ensure that 2.4 million privately rented homes continue to be cold, damp and energy-inefficient. It will ensure that 1.6 million children who we know are currently living in what are officially classed as “non-decent” homes have no relief for another seven years, until the new date set by the Prime Minister of 2035.

Of course, it is not the wealthy landlord who pays the heating bill. That means insulating the properties properly is not something they have an incentive to do, unless it is mandated by Government. It is calculated that the tenants, who do pick up the bill, will end up paying an extra £1 billion in their gas and electric bills because the Prime Minister wants to show that he is not an “eco-zealot”. I would not be proud to wear a badge of moderation on the backs of some of the poorest private sector renters in our country.

I am sure that Government Members will wish to point to the £400 payment from the energy bills support scheme, funded from the windfall tax on oil and gas producers last year. Of course, that still left bills twice as high as they had been previously and provided no relief for off-grid properties or those who had to use prepayment meters. Their alternative scheme for those 900,000 households reached just 2,000 bill payers and returned £440 million to the Treasury. Could the Government not even have the wit to put that money back into the system to provide energy efficiency measures for those properties?

What about the warm home discount? Two years ago, the Government revised the qualifications for it, which means that those 37% of pensioners who are not claiming pension credit do not get the warm home discount either. More than that, not all energy providers are obliged to offer the discount, and even those that are obliged have a limited obligation, which is used on a first come, first served basis.

The job of government is to get the help available to the people who need it. Winter is coming. The Government need to look at this again. They should be introducing a social tariff to protect our most vulnerable, struggling, fuel-poor citizens. They should get rid of the unfair and regressive standing charge and introduce a rising block tariff, so that those using less energy pay less per unit of energy, so that the principle of “polluter pays” applies and so that those who need to heat their swimming pools pay much more per unit to do so.

What we have in this King’s Speech is not the Bill to tackle fuel poverty that we need, but a Bill to shovel yet more public money to the oil and gas sector through the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill. The Government seek to justify the Bill by saying it will “enhance” this country’s energy security. It will not, because companies such as Shell and Siccar Point Energy sell their gas on the international markets and refine their oil abroad. The International Energy Agency has made it clear that we have already identified five times the amount of oil and gas that the world could possibly use if it is to keep within the 1.5° threshold of dangerous climate change.

These licences are part of a scramble to be the last country to sell the last barrel of oil. I gently remind the Secretary of State that the stone age did not end because of a lack of stone, and the oil age will not end because of a lack of oil—oh, but it will end! What my constituents living in cold, inefficient homes do not understand is why, under the tax rules devised by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor, they are the ones who will end up paying to develop these licences. The taxpayer gives 92p in tax rebate for every £1 those companies spend developing these new fields in the North sea basin—companies such as Shell, whose own chief executive called his company’s profits “obscene”.

The Secretary of State tries to persuade the House and the public that these licences are justified because of the tax revenue they will bring. That might be an argument if the facts did not tell us that any tax revenues will not flow from these licences for the five to eight years that it will take to develop them. That might be an argument if the facts did not tell us that it will divert investment away from the real, cheaper, cleaner renewable energy that will actually reduce bills. It might be an argument if it were not the case that, even with the windfall tax, the tax take from oil and gas producers is less than the global average.

When the windfall tax expires next year, the UK tax take from oil and gas producers will fall back to the lowest tax rate in the world—not 10% less than the global average, and not 20% less, but 38% less than the global average. If we levied tax at the global average, we would get an extra £14 billion into the public purse that could address fuel poverty and retrofit those houses.

How does the Secretary of State explain that to the 4,706 families who lost loved ones to excess deaths, the 37% of pensioners not getting their warm home discount or the 2.4 million families now waiting an extra seven years for their landlord to insulate their homes properly? What will she tell them—that there was no time for a Bill to deal with the scourge of fuel poverty, but there was time to introduce a Bill to deal with the scourge of unlicensed pedicabs? Priorities; priorities.

Let me mention two further Bills in the Gracious Speech. I welcome unreservedly the Holocaust Memorial Bill and urge the Government to introduce it swiftly in the eight months before purdah sets in for the next general election. The significance of this Bill has only been heightened by the hideous terror attack on 7 October. Both sides of the House will give the Bill a speedy passage, so that we can build the memorial and learning centre. If there were ever a time that we needed such a learning centre against hatred, it is now.

Finally, I give a much caveated welcome to the leasehold and freehold Bill. If the Government see this Bill as a vehicle to end the feudal system of leasehold, they are wrong. It extends the right to enfranchise and own the freehold of one’s own home only to leasehold homes, not to the 5 million people who live in the misery of leasehold flats. England and Wales is the last redoubt of this antiquated and unjust property ownership. Every other country in the world has a commonhold or strata title system.

The fundamental problem with leasehold is the inequity of power. The leaseholder pays full market value for their apartment, but they have no power to take any of the key decisions that relate to it. They are told by the managing agent what repairs are required, who will do them and how much they will cost, but the leaseholder has to pay. It is not enough, as the Gracious Speech says, to improve leaseholders’ consumer rights. What we need is an abolition of leasehold. We need to abolish marriage value, and we need to enable enfranchisement, so that all leaseholders—not just leasehold house owners, but leasehold flat owners—are able to enjoy the full rights of property ownership, instead of being exploited as they are now.